


Smoke and Mirrors

by HoloXam



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Biscuit-fight, Fun-times in the K-science lab, Hermann Gottlieb Has MS, Kissing, M/M, Pre-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, this is really just a crack fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 20:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16541780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoloXam/pseuds/HoloXam
Summary: ‘Are you currently working with explosive gases?’ Hermann asks, and Newt stares at him, wide-eyed and perplexed, before slowly shaking his head.‘Splendid,’ Hermann says, sits down, and cranes half his head under the sash and into the fume hood. ‘You don’t mind me smoking.’It’s an observation, not a question.





	Smoke and Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lvslie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lvslie/gifts).
  * Inspired by [and i couldn’t whisper when you needed it shouted](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16243949) by [Lvslie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lvslie/pseuds/Lvslie). 



> _Acknowledgements_  
>  This is the ridiculous, non-angsty, modern reinterpretation of the opening scene of Lvslie's beautiful fic, which I decided to butcher while I was running a fever. My sincerest apologies, Sweets.  
> I would like to thank tumblr user 6-phds-and-no-sense for explaining the anatomy of the fume hood to me. There are no mirrors in this fic.  
> Do enjoy.

 

It has been two months since Newt and Hermann decided to join forces: with the Hong Kong research team having been reduced to only the two of them, it had gotten disturbingly quiet in their respective laboratories. So differences aside, they reached a grudging agreement to team up - if for no other reason, then because it’s bloody _cold,_ and two bodies warm up a space better than one. It’s basic thermodynamics.

Newt didn’t even realise that the last code-wrangler in Hermann’s department had left until he showed up to their bi-weekly department meeting with two pots of coffee and found only Hermann looking judgingly at him.

‘Oh,’ Newt said then, or something equally intelligent. He remembers his throat constricting strangely. ‘Is it just you and me now?’

‘I suppose so,’ Hermann said, eyes narrowing. ‘There seems to be little reason to book a conference room if it is just the two of us.’

‘Yeah, that’s true enough. Wanna come back down to mine? It’s closer, and there are no entrails at the moment. Promise,’ Newt said, and Hermann sighed, shrugged, and finally agreed, and it was oddly pleasant for a whole half-hour, while they had coffee and discussed shacking up in the near future.

Newt single-handedly hauled all of Hermann’s chalkboards and computers and writing utensils and dusty books from one lab to another, because Hermann walks poorly these days and Newt’s lab is closer to the elevator.

They fought the whole time, but at least it wasn’t quiet.

 

(Newt has been in Hong Kong for a year and a half. A year and a half of shouting at Hermann during department meetings and avoiding him in the hallways.

A year and a half of reaching a state of near-panic, blood rushing, breath hitching, and heart hammering, when running into Hermann in an empty elevator.

It is downright embarrassing, actually. It’s not like Hermann is … anything to him. Not anymore.)

 

Now, it has been two weird months of getting used to having Hermann around all the time. At least he doesn’t spook Newt so much anymore, even if he has a tendency to glare and mutter under his breath whenever Newt does anything slightly different than what Hermann would do, which is to say, constantly.

And that’s okay, Newt supposes, because Newt has never been organised, Newt has never been particularly quiet, Newt is funny and handsome and interesting, and it's okay for Hermann to be a little jealous of that, because the guy is _boring_ in real life.

 

Except —

 

Except that that turns out not to be true at all, when Hermann marches back into the lab after having growled his goodnights approximately 10 minutes earlier, too-large jacket entirely drenched from the elements. He locks the door with a swift flick of his wrist, throws the dripping jacket to the floor, and drags a chair up to an abandoned clean work station. Turns the fume hood on.

‘Are you currently working with explosive gases?’ he asks, and Newt stares at him, wide-eyed and perplexed, before slowly shaking his head.

‘Splendid,’ Hermann says, sits down, and cranes half his head under the sash and into the fume hood. ‘You don’t mind me smoking.’

It’s an observation, not a question.

Newt’s mouth is hanging wide open, but then he remembers himself and his hands, which are cleaning the dissection table for the night. He quickly gets back to work on that.

He hears Hermann lighting a cigarette, shrugs a bit, and then abruptly turns his head back, when a musky, earthy smell reaches his nostrils.

He stares.

Straddles his chair and rolls up to where Hermann is blowing smoke into the vent.

‘Are you seriously smoking weed in my laboratory?’ Newt asks, more amazed than anything else.

 _‘Our_ laboratory,’ Hermann scolds. ‘Technically, this is my side.’

‘But… you know this is illegal, right?’ Newt asks, and points to the joint in Hermann's hand. ‘Seriously, who are you? Hermann's cool twin? Karla, is that you?’

‘Newton, don’t be ridiculous. As a PPDC-employee I am protected by international law about diplomatic immunity. The Marshal himself condones this.’

‘Are you kidd- _the Marshal?!’_ Newt all but shrieks, and stares at Hermann. ‘Marshal Stacker fucking Pentecost lets his employees smoke the good stuff in the goddamn shatterdome lab?! Am I dead?’

‘No, technically no, and no,’ says Hermann with a shrug. ‘Do you want some?’

‘Er- no thanks, makes me anxious as hell,’ Newt says, getting up and turning off the overhead lights. ‘What do you mean, _technically?’_

‘I have a statement from my physician, saying that _the combination of tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol extracts give subjective relief of spasticity, though objective post-treatment assessments do not reveal significant changes. Evidence also suggests that oral cannabis extract is effective for reducing patient-centered measures of spasticity,_ and the Marshall told me I can do whatever I bloody hell want, as long as I keep it to myself. In any case, it helps me sleep. Grab me a glass of water, while you’re up.’

Momentarily stunned by such a lengthy statement coming from Hermann and _not_ being about breach-data or what a sorry excuse for a scientist Newt is, Newt does as he’s told. He grabs a bottle of sparkling water from his own desk, and a pack of chocolate biscuits.

With the overhead lights turned off, the only light sources apart from those inside the fume hood are Newt’s desk lamp and the kaiju-specimen tanks that cast a strange yellow glow upon the lab. It’s not a half-bad mood for a smoke-in, Newt thinks, were it not for the alien tentacles pulsing ominously, if gently, in their tanks.

Hermann's profile is back-lit by the bright light in the fume hood, and the hollow of his cheek attracts deeper shadows than usual, when he puts filter to lips and breathes in. The yellow light on his already pronounced cheekbone makes him look almost alien, and Newt walks back silently, as if in a trance, as if _he_ was the one currently altering his state of mind. He sits down and leans his chest on the backrest of his chair, and hands Hermann the water bottle.

‘Thank you,’ Hermann says, and his long, pale fingers wrap around the bottle. Newt’s eyes are glued to their motion, and it’s not until Hermann pulls gently that he remembers to let go.

‘Oh,’ Newt says. ‘Sorry.’

Hermann narrows his eyes at him. ‘Your staring is making this awkward, Newton,’ he says at length, before craning his head back in under the sash and taking another long drag.

‘Myeeah,’ Newt says, and lifts his gaze to the smoke that is swirling and being sucked into the ventilation system behind the glass. Hermann breathes out another cloud of smoke and rights himself again, keeping the hand holding the joint inside the fume hood. Newt can feel Hermann’s eyes upon him, and turns back to face him.

It’s all manners of terrible, actually; Newt has spent _years_ building his defenses against this man, spent _years_ drawing up a picture of Hermann Gottlieb as this bone-dry, boring, obsessive pedant, and told himself that any affection he might have held for him once was nothing more than misdirected sexual frustration.

But all that seems to come crashing right down, when Hermann’s features soften into something like a smile, and then a soft laugh.

‘What? What’s funny?’ Newt asks and bites his lip. Is it obvious now? Fuck, _no,_ Hermann has no business knowing that Newt doesn’t actually despise the ground he walks on. Nuh-uh, nope.

‘Your shirt,’ Hermann says and gestures at Newt’s chest with the water bottle. ‘There’s a newt on it. With _glasses._ It’s _you.’_

‘Oh my _god,_ man,’ Newt says, and shoves a biscuit into his mouth. ‘’ve ‘nly bween wearin’ it aw day an’ two-’undred other times.’

Hermann shrugs. ‘Perhaps. But it has not been remotely funny until now.’

‘Okay, either you’re embarrassingly slow on the uptake, which I _doubt,_ or you're a serious lightweight, dude,’ Newt says.

Hermann laughs again, a warm, hearty, big-mouthed laugh that activates all the little wrinkles around his eyes and fully transforms his face into something soft and youthful. Newt feels his stomach flutter strangely, and he’s sort of… yeah, okay, screw it, he’s melting. He throws a biscuit at Hermann’s chest, which makes Hermann laugh harder. Newt throws a couple more.

‘Serious. Light. Weight,’ he repeats in rhythm with the biscuits hitting Hermann’s front.

‘Stop,’ Hermann gasps, and tries turning away. ‘This is not fair warfare, I’m obviously inconvenienced and defenseless.’

‘Then put something down and defend yourself, dumbass,’ Newt says, and shoves another biscuit into his mouth. Before he’s done chewing, Hermann has put down both smoke and bottle, and is breaking the biscuits that have ended up in his lap down into smaller pieces. The first, surprisingly well-aimed shot hits Newt square on the nose, and the next one his forehead.

‘Argh! Not the glasses, dude!’ he half-yells, half-laughs, and Hermann just shrugs and goes for the neck of his T-shirt instead.

Newt yelps as a bunch of crumbs make it down under the front his shirt. With a jerk of his hips he rolls his chair sideways, and he quickly launches another biscuit-attack on Hermann, who shields his face with his arm and throws blindly at Newt.

Even blinded, Hermann’s aim is uncannily good, and Newt scoots his chair back and forth to avoid the chocolate-covered projectiles. That is until the inevitable happens, of course: Newt throws himself too hard and the whole chair loses balance and topples over, making him crash onto the floor.

Hermann makes a startled sound that dissolves into hysterical laughter, while Newt tries to disengage with the chair. He has somehow managed to get his bootlaces tangled in the wheels of the chair, and his legs are tangled around the hydraulic leg, and when he tries to sit up, the chair presses him down.

With a defeated sigh, he flops back down on the floor, and looks up at Hermann.

‘A little help, when you’re done,’ he tries. It comes out in a much less obnoxious tone than what was his intent, but it’s difficult for Newt to be anything else than completely disarmed when Hermann is leaning his head backwards and _laughing_ so hard it doesn’t even make a sound. _Even_ if there’s chocolate melting inside his shirt.

It should be uncomfortable, the cold linoleum floor pressing up against him and the chair pressing down, but if there’s anything Newt is good at, it is laughing at his own misfortune.

And so he does, softly at first, and then more and more loudly, because Hermann’s laugh is contagious, and the whole situation is ridiculous. Imagine someone walking in on them now, two grown men covered in crumbs and in complete hysterics, one of them on the floor and having lost the fight with his ergonomic desk chair? Embarrassing. Newt almost wants it to happen, but then again - this version of Hermann, disarming and silly and … _yes, sweet,_ Newt would like for this version of Hermann to be his own to keep, because it feels like a secret, maybe like a trust-fall Hermann is doing, and … _oh god,_ what _is_ this?

The laugh dies in Newt’s throat, and he stares at the ceiling.

 _We. are not._ Doing _this, brain,_ he scolds inwardly. His body is not getting the memo, though, and is sending alarming amounts of heat into his face and neck. _Perfect. Just perfect._

Slowly, Hermann’s laugh dies down, and he carefully rolls his chair over to where Newt has crashed.

‘Newton,’ Hermann says, and leans in, obscuring the view of the ceiling.

‘Ngh,’ Newt says.

‘Do you have a concussion,’ Hermann asks, though his intonation doesn’t make it sound like a proper question. As it often is with Hermann, it’s more of an observation.

‘Ah- _no,’_ Newt says, and attempts to wiggle his legs free once more. ‘But I’m stuck. Could you…?’

Hermann nods, and rolls down to Newt’s feet.

‘You just gotta free my feet, man, then I can probably handle- _wow.’_

Hermann makes quick work of the offending bootlaces, and pulls the chair upright and off Newt. So that’s freedom, apparently. Newt sits up and tries to shake the crumbs out of his shirt.

‘Did you hurt yourself,’ Hermann asks. He’s so close, now, hunched over and chin in hand, looking directly at Newt with an obscure variation of the Gottliebean Focus (Trade Mark) in his slightly red rimmed, smiling eyes. He extends his free hand to Newt, and Newt grabs it, unthinking. Hermann’s intention to help him to his feet gets obstructed, and instead he pulls himself close to Newt.

‘You’ve got something on your face,’ Hermann says, and releases Newt’s hand.

‘Yeah, and whose fault is that?’ Newt counters, and wipes at his cheek. Hermann huffs out a laugh.

‘Not there, by your- oh, _let me,_ won’t you?’

Newt freezes, as Hermann licks his thumb and wipes it at the smudge by the corner of Newt’s mouth. Newt bites his lower lip and tries in vain to look anywhere but Hermann’s face, but it’s impossible. Hermann doesn’t withdraw his hand, but flicks his eyes up to meet Newt’s, and that’s when something electric happens - Newt gasps and Hermann nods, and suddenly they’re scrambling for each other, meeting each other halfway, both somehow _on_ and _off_ Hermann’s chair. Before he knows what’s happening, Newt finds himself moaning into Hermann’s mouth, while grabbing desperately at Hermann’s shirt, face, hair - anything he can get his hands on, really. Hermann is not much better off with his pulling at the front of Newt’s shirt in an attempt to get Newt into the chair, which he keeps abandoning to put his hands on Newt’s face.

There’s a bit of awkward fumbling when Newt tries to steady them to avoid another tumble to the floor - Hermann is unwilling to let him go for as much as a second, and Newt’s stance is rather unstable. But a firm tug from Hermann brings Newt mostly into his lap, with one leg steadying them on the floor, and the kissing can continue with less risk of disaster.

The sound of someone turning the door handle makes Newt sit up straight and look around. Hermann makes a displeased sound and drags him back down, pressing his mouth to Newt’s neck.

‘Hermann- there’s someone,’ Newt gasps, gripping Hermann’s shoulder for support.

‘Door’s locked,’ Hermann growls against Newt’s skin and pulls him closer, sneaking a hand up under the back of his shirt. ‘I think we’d rather not let them in, yes?’

‘Right,’ Newt says, turning to capture Hermann’s lips with his own again. The handle turns once more, but the intruder then presumably gives up and leaves.

After a bit more filthy and uncoordinated kissing, Newt breaks away for air and leans his cheek on Hermann’s forehead.

‘Let’s, uh, let’s do this again, sometime?’ he says, breathless.

‘Indeed,’ Hermann says.

Newt kisses him again.

 


End file.
